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by Roe



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 9x23, Brother Feels, Coda, Demon Dean Winchester, POV Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-05
Updated: 2014-06-05
Packaged: 2018-02-03 13:03:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1745630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roe/pseuds/Roe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam arrives back at the bunker with Dean's body in tow. <br/>He has to keep moving, but what is he supposed to do now?<br/>But then he's not alone, and Dean is alive, and everything is going to be ok.<br/>Sam should have known better than to think that.</p>
            </blockquote>





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**Author's Note:**

> Sam POV is a challenge but I love it so. This is angsty, but probably happier than the show will be, at least in terms of the reality of demon!dean.

It was numbness, now, Sam realized. Every part of him was devoid of feeling, from his fingertips to his eyelids to the pit of his stomach. Nothing.

Crowley hadn’t responded to his calls. Not that Sam had any plan at all beyond berating or possibly killing Crowley, but still—no dice.Cas was unreachable. Fuck, he even tried praying to Gadreel—the guy owed them, Sam figured, but no answer came through. 

Dean had—Dean’s body had been lying on his bed for…15 hours now. Sam couldn’t go back in the room. He wasn’t going to go back in, not at all, not until someone answered his damned calls and told him how to fix his brother.

At 21 hours it occurred to Sam that no one was going to answer.

At 29 hours he realized that he needed to do something with the body but he couldn’t get his legs to lift him out of the chair.

So when, at 35 hours since he had brought his brother into the bunker, lifting his head from the library table where he had, apparently, passed out, it took Sam a few seconds to realize what woke him was the sound of footsteps coming from the hallway by the bedrooms.

He shot out of his chair with a jolt—hello, feeling again—and turned to the sound of the footsteps, steadying himself on the back of the chair when the blood rushed to his head.

"Cas?" He called out, bleary eyed and voice hoarse from lack of use. He walked toward the sound of the boots on the tiled hallway, the weight on his shoulders a tiny bit lighter than it was a minute ago. Cas was okay, and thank God, he hadn’t lost both his brothers in one day. But he had to tell him. Shit, he had to tell Cas.

"Cas, he’s…he’s…" The words caught in the back of his throat, heavy and leaden. He knew he had to get to him before the angel wandered into the bedroom and discovered the body, but couldn’t get his mouth to form the letters. How the hell was he supposed to tell him? 

Sam stumbled into the wall and steadied himself, eyes downcast as he rounded the corner.

When lifted his head, he didn’t see Cas. He saw, impossibly, Dean.

"Heya, Sammy."

And he didn’t understand, Crowley had fixed it, or Cas had fixed it somehow, but it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter, because Dean was here and Sam wasn’t asleep and this wasn’t a dream and it was real, it was real, it was real. In seconds he reached Dean and pulled him into a hug so tight that his brother laughed a little as his arms came up to hug Sam back. 

"Hey man, take it easy."

And Sam collapsed further into Dean and told himself that it was 70% because his legs were still not working and it was the only way he could stay standing. 

"Dean," he breathed as he pulled away, hands resting on his brother’s shoulders. He couldn’t pull them away. "You’re okay. You’re alive. How are you alive?"

Dean looked momentarily confused and then a little sad. “Right.”

Shit, no. “Dean, I didn’t make a deal. I swear, I swear that I didn’t.”

Dean looked down, nodding slowly to himself. “No man, I know…I just. I shouldn’t be. Be alive. That was real?”

Sam didn’t flinch, but it was a near thing, and he couldn’t stop himself from letting his arms fall and pressing his thumb into the palm of his left hand. 

"Yeah…yeah, man that was real."

Dean smiled but his voice was hollow. “Ok.”

And he turned and walked away from Sam, heading back to his room.

Sam followed, his relief turning quickly into worry. It didn’t help that the next words from his brother were:

"Where’s Crowley?" Dean grabbed a duffel out of his closet and tossed it onto the bed. 

"Crowley?" Dean was…packing? And asking about Crowley. What the hell. "He hasn’t been around since we left him to gank Metatron. He’s not around."

"Metatron." Dean’s hand gripped the bag tighter, his jaw clenched. "He alive?"

"Yeah, he’s alive. He disappeared after, uh…"

"—Right."

"Dean, what’s going on?"

Sam was trying to concentrate on what was happening now, right now, but it was all so surreal. His emotions were running faster than he could keep track of them.

Sorrow had turned to elation and relief turned to confusion, and now fear was butting through the haze of them to stand at the forefront, making the skin of Sam’s body tight like the skin of an animal that hears a twig snap in the forest and wonders what it brings.

He knew this feeling. He was trying to push it down, to accept that Dean was here and alive and that this was what mattered, not the how or why, but his instincts were telling him better. Something was wrong.


End file.
